Movement Forms to Restore Integrity, Responsibility to WVU

Contact: Boyd Edwards
(304) 293-3422 ex. 1433
bedwards@wvu.edu

Michael Perone
304-293-2001 ex. 31604
Michael.Perone@mail.wvu.edu

MAY 7, 2008—Professors, staff, alumni, students, and friends of West Virginia University inaugurated a movement today to restore integrity and responsibility to the university in the wake of WVU President Michael Garrison’s refusal to resign after an independent panel concluded the governor’s daughter received a graduate degree she did not earn and the WVU Faculty Senate voted overwhelmingly to demand Garrison’s ouster.

The goals of Mountaineers for Integrity and Responsibility (MIR) go beyond ensuring Garrison’s resignation. The movement aims to convince West Virginia lawmakers and other key figures in government that restoring academic integrity to WVU will require systemic changes, including new procedures for picking the university’s president and provost.

In the short term, however, MIR intends to keep the pressure on Garrison to resign because of the enormous, negative long-term impact of flawed and compromised leadership on everything from graduate student recruitment to fundraising to awarding of grants to hiring new, dynamic faculty.

Dr. Boyd Edwards, the Bolton Professor of Physics at WVU, was elected MIR’s chair; Michael Perone, the chair of the Department of Psychology, was elected vice-chair.

“President Garrison has defied calls for his resignation from faculty, staff, students, alumni, and donors,” Edwards said. “WVU’s recovery relies on his removal from office. We call on Mountaineers everywhere to assist. The honor and integrity of WVU is at stake.”

Members of MIR are helping to organize a meeting of the entire WVU faculty May 14 from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. in the Clay Theatre in the Creative Arts Center.

Student members of MIR are also planning to express their opinion in a respectful way in conjunction with WVU’s commencement ceremonies beginning May 17.